A century of coatings

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how UNIFLEX has grown and changed over the years as the coating industry has risen in popularity.  

In this episode of CoatingsCast, Karen Edwards sits down with Timothy (Tim) Klindt from UNIFLEX, a Sherwin Williams’ brand, to talk about the brand’s history and where they are today. The story actually begins in the early 1900s, with KST Coatings. Tim explained, “Since the early 1900s it’s been a separate entity. It was an acquisition of Sherwin-Williams about 20 years ago, and that's how Sherwin-Williams got into the roofing game, and they had some technologies that Sherwin-Williams wanted to utilize in some other spaces.” 

This acquisition came right as coatings began getting mainstream attention. Tim explained, “In the early forties, fifties, sixties, coatings were just some aluminum emulsion type coatings and stuff like that. They actually aren't a new system, but they weren’t as popular.” Today, they have become more prevalent because of sustainability and carbon initiatives. Tim elaborated on why coatings are popular for their sustainability, saying, “Being able to restore existing roof substrates that don't necessarily need to be torn off, and technologies that have advanced to move that space [sustainability] a little farther along. And then when you think of supply chain issues and stuff like that that we've had over the last couple of years with the pandemic, it really kind of brought more relevancy to coatings because people had to entertain them as an option.” 

While this popularity has been a huge advancement for the industry, Tim emphasized that the growth requires an increase of educational resources and training opportunities as not every roof is ready for a coating. This is something that Sherwin-Williams' acquisition of UNIFLEX has helped support. “I think people are starting to understand that if we have a good working roof assembly to begin with and we're mitigating moisture and taking care of the issues before the coating is installed and using them as a restoration system, they're a great option. So, we have programs within the Sherwin-Williams organization to help with moisture surveys and other efforts to check this.”  

Read the transcript, Listen to the full conversation or Watch the webinar for more about UNIFLEX coatings and how the industry has grown over time.